The Vietnam Reader: The Definitive Collection of Fiction and Nonfiction on the War

by Stewart O'Nan (Editor)

Overview

An extraordinary selection of the finest and best-known art from the American war in Vietnam, from Tim O'Brien to Marvin Gaye, from mainstream bestsellers to radical poetry.

This authoritative and accessible volume includes fiction, nonfiction, poetry, drama, film, photography, and popular song lyrics from the Vietnam War era, covering a breadth of experiences and perspectives. Also included are incisive reader's questions—useful for educators and book clubs—in a volume that makes an essential contribution to a wider understanding of the Vietnam War.

An indispensable and provocative read for anyone who wants to know more about the war that changed the face of late-twentieth-century America.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780385491181
Publisher:	Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Publication date:	10/20/1998
Pages:	736
Product dimensions:	5.22(w) x 7.94(h) x 1.60(d)

About the Author

Stewart O'Nan is the author of numerous books, including West of Sunset, The Odds, Emily Alone, Snow Angels, Songs for the Missing, and A Prayer for the Dying. His 2007 novel, Last Night at the Lobster, was a national bestseller and a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. He was born and raised in Pittsburgh, where he lives with his family.

Hometown:

Avon, CT

Date of Birth:

February 4, 1961

Place of Birth:

Pittsburgh, PA

Education:

B.S., Aerospace Engineering, Boston University, 1983; M.F.A., Cornell University, 1992

Website:

http://www.stewart-onan.com

Read an Excerpt

from the Introduction
 
A few years ago when I began teaching the American literature of the Vietnam War, I tried to find an anthology my students could use—a book that collected all the major work in one place. This didn't seem far-fetched; the war had been over for twenty years, and thousands of books had been written about it. But as I searched through libraries and catalogues, new- and used-book shops, I discovered there wasn't one.
 
Yes, there were anthologies, but most were out of print and none put together all the pieces I considered essential. Some were fitted together like polemics, others relied too heavily on dull reportage. There were solid poetry anthologies, most notably W. D. Ehrhart's Carrying the Darkness, but few books had tried to collect everything—the fiction, the oral histories, the memoirs, the films, the photos—and those that did inevitably had gaps. Imagine a comprehensive Vietnam anthology without the work of Michael Herr or Tim O'Brien or Larry Heinemann, without a healthy sampling of the oral histories, without a single mention of Platoon, without Ronald Haeberle's famous picture of the ditch at My Lai.
 
Instead of ordering a single volume and sending my students to the campus store, I began digging through the individual novels and poetry collections, poring over the photographic essays, watching the films, taking notes, making photocopies. I haunted the used-book stores for sadly out-of-print work, borrowed books from colleagues, sat in the stacks of libraries.  What I finally came up with was a course packet weighing in at around six pounds, the permissions for which were impossible to secure in time for the semester.
 
While I've cut a great deal from that original manuscript, this book remains true to its core. I believe I've chosen and hunted down the elusive permissions for the best and best known works about the war, selections that will give the reader both an essential overview and a deep understanding of how America has seen its time in Vietnam over the past thirty years.
 
Any Vietnam anthology should bring its reader closer to the war, and in teaching my course I found that one way to accomplish that, beyond presenting students with the usual literature, was to include such powerful and immediate material as photographs, films, and popular songs. They bring the war home inescapably, in the same way they inflamed and informed the public when they first appeared. It's one thing to tell a class that the average age of the combat soldier in Vietnam was nineteen, another to show them a roomful of recruits no older than themselves. By examining the films and songs, my students gained a deeper appreciation for how the war, and its representation, has always been debated in a charged, extremely public forum, and how that debate has changed over the years. As with the literary selections, the photos, songs, and films I've chosen to include are the best and best known, some, like Haeberle's shot of My Lai, practically iconic at this point.
 
The Vietnam Reader is organized according to two chronological schemes. The first is the typical arc of the Vietnam narrative and traces the tour of duty from induction all the way through returning stateside. The second scheme is the timeframe during which these books and films were released. In certain chapters (such as the popular songs) I found it did more justice to the material to collect works that span a great deal of time but are similar in either theme or genre, thereby illustrating how trends in representing Vietnam echoed the changes in American popular and political culture. This combination of approaches is intended to give the reader a better sense of how both the soldiers' and the public's attitudes toward Vietnam have changed as the years pass.

Table of Contents

Map of Vietnam
Introduction
Chronology of the War

Green
Robin Moore The Green Berets (1965)
Tim O'Brien If I Die in a Combat Zone (1973)
Tim O'Brien Going After Cacciato (1978)

Early Work
David Halberstam one very hot day (1967)
Tim O'Brien If I Die in a Combat Zone (1973)
Michael Casey Obscenities (1972)
David Rabe Sticks and Bones (1969)
From Demilitarized Zones, Jan Barry and W.D. Ehrhart, Editors

First Wave of Major Work
Ron Kovac Born on the Fourth of July (1976)
James Webb Fields of Fire (1978)
Philip Capto A Rumor of War (1977)
Michael Herr Dispatches (1977)
Tim O'Brien Going After Cacciato (1978)

First Wave of Major Films
The Deer Hunter, Coming Home, Apocalypse Now

Songs
"The Ballad of the Green Berets" Barry Sadler and Robin Moore (1966)
"I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixen'-to-Die-Rag" Country Joe McDonald 1965
"Fortunate Son" Creedence Clearwater RevivalJohn Fogerty (1969)
"The Unknown Soldier" The DoorsJim Morrison (1968)
"What's Going on" Marvin Gaye (1971)
"War" Edwin Starr (1970)
"Born in the U.S.A." Bruce Springsteen (1984)
"The Big Parade" 10,000 ManiacsNatalie Merchant (1989)

The Oral History Boom
Mark Baker Nam (1981)
Wallace Terry Bloods (1984)
Keith Walker A Piece of My Heart (1985)
From Dear America: Letters Home from Vietnam, Bernard Edelman, Editor (1985)
Al Santoli Everything We Had (1981)

Second Wave of Major Work
John M. Del Vecchio The 13th Valley (1982)
Stephan Wright Meditations in Green (1983)
Larry Heinemann Paco's Story (1986)

Second Wave of Major Films
Platoon, Full Metal Jacket

Memoirs
Ronald J. Glasser, M.D. 365 Days (1971)
Frederick Downs The Killing Zone (1978)
Robert Mason Chickenhawk (1983)
Michael Lee Lanning The Only War We Had (1987)

Masterwork
Tim O'Brien The Things They Carried (1990)

Homecoming
Larry Heinemann Paco's Story (1986)
Louise Erdrich Love Medicine (1984)
From Carrying the Darkness, W.D. Ehrhart, Editor (1985)
Bruce Weigl A Romance (1979), The Monkey Wars (1985), What Saves Us (1992)
Tim O'Brien The Things They Carried 1990

Memory
Yusef Komunyakaa Dien Cai Dau 1988
Bobbie Ann Mason In Country (1985)
Kevin Bowen "Incoming" (1994)
Tim O'Brien In the Lake of the Woods (1994)
John Balaban "Mr. Giai's Poem" (1991)

The Wall
W.D. Ehrhart "The Invasion of Grenada" (1984)
Stewart O'Nan The Names of the Dead (1996)
Yusef Komunyakaa Dien Cai Dau (1988)

Glossary
Selected Additional Bibliography
Selected Additional Filmography
Reading Questions
Acknowledgments
Index

Reading Group Guide

About the Book:The Vietnam Reader is a selection of the finest and best-known art from the American war in Vietnam, including fiction, nonfiction, poetry, drama, film, still photos, and popular song lyrics. All the strongest work is here, from mainstream bestsellers to radical poetry, from Tim O'Brien to Marvin Gaye. Also included are incisive reader's questions—useful for educators and book clubs—in a volume that makes an essential contribution to a wider understanding of the Vietnam War.

This authoritative and accessible volume is sure to become a classic reference, as well as indispensable and provocative reading for anyone who wants to know more about the war that changed the face of late-twentieth-century America.Discussion Questions:

Editorial Reviews

Edited by Stewart O'Nan, The Vietnam Reader presents an authoritative collection of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, film, photography, and popular song lyrics depicting the war in Vietnam. From Tim O'Brien, Ron Kovic, and James Webb to Bruce Springsteen and Marvin Gaye, this wide-ranging compilation includes "selections that will give the reader both an essential overview and a deep understanding of how America has seen its time in Vietnam over the past thirty years."

bn.com

O'Nan, himself the author of a well-received novel about the struggles of a Vietnam vet to readjust to civilian life (The Names of the Dead), has compiled a lengthy, varied, and somewhat idiosyncratic anthology of fiction and nonfiction by American writers about the war and its aftermath. The book was inspired, he notes in his preface, by his discovery that there was no wide-ranging compilation on the subject. O'Nan's selections, primarily excerpts from full-length works, include fiction by Tim O'Brien (Going After Cacciato, The Things They Carried), James Webb (Fields of Fire), Larry Heinemann (Paco's Story), Stephen Wright (Meditations in Green), and John Del Vecchio (The 13th Valley), plus excerpts from memoirs by Robert Mason (Chickenhawk), Ronald J. Glasser (365 Days), and Michael Lee Lanning (The Only War We Had). O'Nan also includes the lyrics of a variety of period songs ('The Ballad of the Green Berets,' 'Born in the USA'), critical summaries of films about the war, and some poetry. His adroit notes point out some of the most salient features of this literature (the relative neglect of the Vietnamese experience of war; the evolution of the American soldier protagonist from hero to cynical survivor; the persistent attempt to puzzle out what the war tells us about our society and government), and a glossary, bibliography, and chronology further help set the work in context. While the inclusion of more less-familiar writers would have been welcome, this is nonetheless a powerful, deeply revealing collection, and the best available introduction to a major body of modern American literature.

Kirkus Reviews